MirrorWorld

So, against my better judgment and my desire to fight, I run. I can feel him gaining faster now, the impacts of his large, clawed feet echoing through the chamber, now devoid of everything but the dead and dying.

I leap over the corpse of a Dread Squad soldier, plotting a course through the field of bodies lying ahead of me.

But my feet never reach the ground. Sharp talons pierce the armored padding over my shoulders and lift me up. I reach back for Faithful, my only remaining weapon, but quickly realize it’s not needed as I rise up far higher than Lyons could reach. I glance up, looking at the underside of a lone mothman, carrying me toward the ceiling, several hundred feet above.

A roar pursues us, but Lyons can’t fly.

I watch him turn and charge for the archway. Wherever the mothman takes me, I don’t think Lyons will be far behind.

We rise up toward the domed ceiling, which looks honeycombed. There are alcoves, like those belonging to the bulls, but these encircle the ceiling. Several of the alcoves lead outside. We rise up, our ascent slowing, until we’ve passed through an exit to the outside, near the top of the massive colony. Our descent begins smoothly, but the mothman is tiring—and now I see the wound, a bullet hole in its muscular chest. Two more in its gut. Glowing red plasma pumps steadily from the wounds. This mothman is dying. Pulling me from the colony will likely be its final act.

Twenty feet from the colony roof, the mothman breathes its last. We drop together, striking the roof and rolling down over the edge, landing in the thick sludgy earth separating the structure from the swamp.

I’m out, but Lyons is on his way, and—I unzip the backpack and look at the timer—I have six minutes to get this thing someplace where it won’t do any damage. And that’s not going to happen in the mirror dimension. Time to go home.

I slip through the world between and back to New Orleans in a blink. I’m in the middle of a road. Tires screech on the pavement as the bumper and grill of a pickup truck stop inches from my face.

“Get out of the road, asshole!” The truck speeds up, forcing me to dive to the side. A second car speeds past. Both are full of people, armed with baseball bats and fire pokers. I see at least two guns and am lucky one of them didn’t decide to shoot me or run me over. A third vehicle, one I recognize, speeds up and screeches to a halt.

The SUV’s door opens. Cobb runs around to the front of the vehicle, seeing that it’s me. “Crazy,” he says, using the name he first knew me by, “sorry I left my position, but I saw these people head into the park and—” That’s when he really sees me. “Damn, man, what happened? Are you okay?”

I get to my feet. “We only have a few minutes.”

“Until what?”

I show him the backpack. “This is a microwave bomb.”

Cobb’s skin goes pale so quickly that I think God must use Photoshop.

“But we have maybe a minute before Lyons shows up.”

“Lyons?” Cobb says. “But he’s old and—”

“Not anymore.”

A distant roar punctuates my statement. Lyons has already reached the top of the colony and is now searching for me, probably moving back and forth between frequencies. I hurry around Cobb. “We need to move!”

A second roar, closer this time. Lyons is closing in. A quick peek into the mirror world reveals as much. He’s spotted us in the real world and is charging through the Dread swamp, a quarter mile off, planning on taking us by surprise. We have thirty seconds until his gruesome arrival and another few minutes until the water molecules in our bodies are sped up so fast that we cook from the inside out.





61.

When Lyons arrives, I’m still outside the SUV. Cobb starts to scream, but I shove him inside the vehicle and slam the door. A long-clawed arm swooshes down toward my head. I duck while shifting back into the mirror world. It’s just a momentary visit to confuse Lyons. When he pursues me between frequencies, I’ve already left. Back in the real world, the SUV peels away, Cobb swerving as he fights the wheel and the powerful fear instilled in him by Lyons.

Backpack slung over my shoulder, I run in the opposite direction, heading south. I glance back, expecting to see Lyons right behind me, but he’s not there. I switch to double vision, viewing both worlds fully. My mind once again reels from the dual input. I’m seeing and feeling the solid ground beneath my feet, but I’m also seeing four feet of swamp water. My brain is telling me that there should be resistance, but I only see the water and can’t feel it. As a headache catches fire behind my eyes, I see Lyons.